No Greater Treasure

Why just a babe in a manger?
Why not a glorious hall,
A marblestone palace with ramparts
And turrets and towers and all?

Why aren't there ladies and lords?
Why just these shepherds and sheep?
Why not the brightest and best
Instead of a dark night so deep?

Why not two parents of royal
Descent, of lineage grand,
A heritage fit for a king,
Instead of this maid and this man?

Why not a royal parade
With cornets and psalteries and harps?
Why just the braying of beasts
In the night, in the cold, in the dark?

This King needs no palace or pomp,
No glitter or glory or gold,
For He is the treasure of Heaven
That cannot be bought or be sold.

What men prize as treasures are cheap,
Hold no weight in the courts of the Lord,
And this stable with oxen and cattle
Is palace enough for our God.

For the treasure itself lies within,
'Tis Jesus, the fairest of fair,
And anything earth could afford
Would be but as dust were it there.

It matters not how poor the setting
If it holds the greatest of gifts;
If Jesus is guest in the hall
There's no greater treasure than this.

The God-Man

Our God enfleshed in Christ has come,
Let royal wisdom strike us dumb;
To save our lost and fallen race
He takes on human form and face.

Who could conceive of such a plan?
'Twas not devised by likes of man;
Only wisdom from above
Could conceive such saving love.

For mortal man had lost it all
From Adam's failure in the fall;
But sinful man can't pay the price
So God becomes the sacrifice.

Man could not atone for sin
Nor could God die, but look within
The stable rude - our God appears
As man, and Calv'ry's moment nears.

For just a while He's with us here,
For these three and thirty years;
He lives the only sinless life
'Midst our sorrow and our strife.

Then in Gethsemane He takes
Our sin and Satan's thralldom breaks,
When on the cross He nails it there
And we escape the fowler's lair.

Let joy come down like falling rain
For love has broken sin's dark chains,
Let every human heart become
The dwelling place of Christ, the Son.

Heaven's Best

Earth cared not for this Son of God,
No place to lay his head,
Offered naught but sheets of straw,
A manger for a bed.

No room, they said, within the inn,
But there's a barn outside;
Soon forgotten in the cold,
They heard not when he cried.

But heaven gave its very best -
A star to guide the way
Of those who came across the wilds
To where the young child lay.

And angels to announce his birth
To shepherds in the field,
And to give to him the name
Above all names revealed.

Look up and lift your eyes from earth
To see his star above,
To hear the wonders of his name
From messengers of love.

Joseph

I think this poem brings Joseph out of the background where he has been hidden for too long and says everything that needs to be said about fathers, what they should be and what they should do.

"Joseph, fear not," said the angel,
"To take to thee Mary thy wife."
It was Joseph who would guard the young child
Through the the soon-coming trouble and strife.

It was to Joseph the angel
Spoke that sweetest Name, all names above,
'Twas Joseph who gave Him that name -
JESUS, the Son of God's love.

It was Joseph who watched over Mary
And cared for the family of God,
Who guided and guarded and took them
To Bethlehem town as they trod.

It was Joseph who asked the innkeeper
If a room perchance he might have,
And 'twas Joseph who readied the manger
'Mong'st the goats and the sheep and the calves.

It was Joseph who watched o'er his family
As shepherds and wise men came there;
It was Joseph who guarded his flock
And kept his small family in prayer.

The angel appeared unto Joseph
In a dream saying "Rise up and go;
Take mother and child into Egypt
And be there 'til I let you know."

For Herod was ranting and raving
And sought the life of the child,
But Joseph, the husband and father,
Kept them from cruel Herod's wiles.

Again, in a dream, did the angel
Tell Joseph 'twas safe to return,
So he took the young child and his mother
Back to Israel where Jesus learned

As he sat at the feet of his father,
And helped at the carpenter's trade,
That fathers are strong and courageous
And good, like the tables he made.

And still today God looks for Josephs,
For husbands and fathers who love,
Who'll guard the great gifts God has given
And be like our Father above.

The Magi's Gifts

What strange gifts for a little child;
Would he not rather have a top, a toy,
That he could play with as a boy?
Why bring these gifts through regions wild?

What stirred within their hearts to bring
Such presents to a peasant's babe?
What sentiments were there portrayed?
Or were they off'rings for a king?

What meant this strange gift of myrrh
Which does not celebrate his birth
But puts the value and the worth
On his dying, as it were?

And why this gift of frankincense?
'Tis used in worship of our God.
And yet this babe on common sod
Is worthy such extravagance.

For gold depicts divinity indeed,
And so the wise men, not beguiled,
Knew that Jesus, Holy Child,
Was Christ the Son, the Royal Seed.

O Jesus, Jesus, stir my heart
To bring Thee gifts of precious worth
As frankincense and gold and myrrh
That I might know Thee as Thou art.